Vehicle diagnosis systems that are limited to vehicle diagnosis, such as an onboard diagnosis system (OBD system), are known. During driving, all systems, particularly those that influence exhaust gases, are monitored, and also additionally further important controllers such as temperature controllers or the like, the data of which are accessible through their software. Errors that occur are indicated to the driver by means of a warning light and are permanently stored in the respective controller. Error reports can then be requested later by a technical workshop using standardized interfaces or suchlike vehicle diagnosis interfaces.
What are known as OBD diagnosis interfaces are also known that—as can be gleaned from the website www.obd-2.de, for example—can use a Bluetooth or suchlike air interface to couple to the vehicle diagnosis interface in order to make vehicle diagnosis data available for a smartphone, Android or pocket PC or suchlike mobile user communication terminal. Such devices dispense with the need to go to the workshop, but are limited to making only the vehicle diagnosis data available to the vehicle driver and user of the mobile user communication terminal. A problem with such devices is simply the flexibility with regard to usability with reference to the vehicle diagnosis interface. Although the errors or other codes of the vehicle diagnosis data are standardized (ISO Standard 15031-6), the protocol for transmitting them is not. Therefore, it has also been necessary to date for a separate OBD interface, separate from mobile user communication terminals, still to be limited to a particular interpreter chip (e.g. ELM327).
US 2010/0210254 A1 discloses a system that restricts the use of a mobile user communication terminal, coupled to a vehicle diagnosis interface in this manner, for particular driving situations for the vehicle. Thus a piece of blocking software may be designed to receive vehicle diagnosis data and to block the operation of at least one communication function of the mobile user communication terminal on the basis of the received vehicle diagnosis data. This may be an increased speed or a switching process or suchlike result of a vehicle diagnosis, for example.
US 2010/0256861 discloses a system for monitoring the integrity status of a vehicle using a vehicle monitoring computer system and a mobile telephone that can receive a piece of diagnostic information relating to a vehicle from a vehicle. This is also intended to be used to automatically determine a severity status for vehicle states on the basis of predefined severity status values, and if the severity status exceeds a predefined severity threshold value for any of the vehicle states then a text message is intended to be automatically transmitted to the mobile telephone. In this case, a vehicle identification number (FIN) or an identification for the mobile telephone (PIN) is able to be implemented in a suitable data packet. The mobile telephone in the system is wirelessly connected to the vehicle or to its environment and can communicate with the environment, for example, via a communication network or an Internet, in order to transmit vehicle diagnosis data to the network. This allows the data to be evaluated, whether by the vehicle keeper and mobile telephone user from an external center or whether by a control center belonging to third parties. The mobile telephone and the CPU of the vehicle controller can enter a paired state using Bluetooth in this case without the need for user intervention, which means the vehicle diagnosis data are transmitted automatically.
The aforementioned diagnosis connections coupled to a vehicle-implemented vehicle diagnosis system by air interface are limited to the evaluation of vehicle diagnosis data that, in this respect, can be transmitted in an uplink—from the vehicle-implemented vehicle diagnosis system to the mobile user communication terminal—only unidirectionally. The systems are limited either to restricting the communication function of the mobile user communication terminal as a result of the vehicle diagnosis data, as in US 2010/0210254 A1, or else to transmitting a message to the mobile user communication terminal merely for the purpose of informing the user of the mobile user communication terminal, as in US 2010/0256861, who is not necessarily the vehicle driver. Such systems are limited to merely rendering the pure vehicle diagnosis data transparently visible to a mobile telephone user and possibly to dispensing with the need to go to the workshop.
US 2008/0015748 A1 discloses a system and method for representing and analyzing vehicle diagnosis data from a vehicle diagnosis interface that has, inter alia, an air interface coupling to a mobile user communication terminal, which means that the vehicle diagnosis data can be transmitted wirelessly. In this case, in addition to the vehicle diagnosis data, geographical position data are also transmitted from the vehicle diagnosis interface to the mobile user communication terminal or a navigation device and forwarded to an Internet server or a Wide Area Network (WAN). Thus, the data can be inspected by end users or software applications can gain access to such data in a manner automated by a program. Such a software application may be coupled to the mobile user communication terminal only from a network in dynamically configurable fashion. The vehicle diagnosis data can be made available to an authorized user, namely a recovery service.
This system is also limited to a unidirectional connection within the context of an uplink—for a vehicle-implemented vehicle diagnosis system to the mobile user communication terminal—in order to spur on an action from external authorized users on the basis of an analysis that uses the vehicle diagnosis data.